17 January 2006

The Supreme Court delivered a nice smackdown to Bush and his empire of evil today, basically telling them to keep their slimy mitts off Oregon's assisted suicide law. As soon as I saw the headlines, I knew it was only a matter of time before some empty-headed administration dimwit would dust off the phrase "culture of life." Sure enough, from an AP article on the internets:"White House press secretary Scott McClellan said, "The president remains fully committed to building a culture of life, a culture of life that is built on valuing life at all stages."(Click on this posting's title for the entire Yahoo/AP article.)Tell that to the 2000+ Americans who have died in the desert in the last few years. Never mind the untold thousands of Iraqi lives lost in this fruitless, illegal, immoral "war". What about the millions that are going to die from diseases that could be eradicated using stem cells?Fucking hypocrite. At this writing there are 1098 days left in this reign of terror. Of course, we could end up with someone worse, though at this point it's hard to imagine how...

08 January 2006

The wife is after me to add "Brokeback Mountain" to our Netflix list. I am still on the fence about it. While I am certainly open-minded and supportive of our gay brothers and sisters, I am somewhat suspicious about the motives of those film critics that are falling all over themselves praising this movie. Is it really that good, or is it political correctness run amok? Gene Shalit (not someone whose opinion I especially value, BTW) wrote a less-than-favorable review and has been excoriated by, among others, GLAAD. Perhaps other critics fear being labeled homophobic if they don't heap praise on the film. Admittedly, I have not read or heard his actual review, and from the sounds of it, he was complaining about the behavior of the characters in the movie, not the filmmaking itself.

The other issue I have is with the subject itself. All the talk (hype, that is) centers on the gay issue. This makes me think it's all about tittilation. Would this movie have generated the same buzz if it centered on a hetrosexual couple's lives? Or would it just be another routine soap opera set among some beautiful western surroundings? It seems to me that we should be beyond using the topic of homosexuality as a means to sell tickets. Gay people are just that-- people, and it's demeaning to them when Hollywood sensationalizes their sexuality just so Joe Sixpack and Sally Boondocks can titter uncomfortably in the theater or their living rooms.

My concerns aside, I probably will put it on the list. The assholes on Faux News and their ilk have been foaming at the mouth in their rush to condemn it (mostly sight unseen I'd guess), and maybe that's a good enough reason to see it!

The wife and her little friend are fond of playing the "Either / Or" game. They'll pose a question such as, "Who would you rather go to bed with, Donald Trump or Al Sharpton?" I take great delight in shutting them down with answers such as, "Yes" or "I sure would." You'd think they would learn to stop trying to drag me into it after about oh, say, the hundredth time, but nope. They continue with their feeble attempts to engage me.